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I would not love, unless I was loved first and loved the most. I would be nothing at all, if I could not be first.
Oh my heart
My life had been a mistake—born a girl, and on the wrong side of wedlock. I had no room to make more errors.
“The shape of who you are is an image of heaven and earth,”
What I dreaded most wasn’t defaming the Crown Prince or even losing my life. My fear was quieter than that. I dreaded Father’s disapproval, and disapproval from those like him—the powerful and highly respected.
I did not want to be like this, a girl too afraid to do what was right for fear of what others would think. And I did know what was right. I recognized it as clearly as I did the sun in the sky.
“I suppose there is nothing polite about murder.” “Precisely,” he said.
“But never fear. Next time it will be my turn.” “Your turn?” “To watch out for you.”
“When the time comes,” he said quietly, holding my gaze the way he held my hand. “You watch out for me. And I will always watch out for you.”
I wanted to love and be loved. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be understood and accepted.
I was not so desperate and foolish as to want anything more. I had his friendship. It was enough. It had to be enough.
She does not know how to love. It does not mean that she does not love at all.
His gaze bored into me—that familiar searching gaze, as though he were leaning in to peer beneath the surface of who I was. As though he actually saw something worth looking for.
When I was with him, I felt as I had at the Segeomjeong Pavilion—as though we’d escaped into another world where only we two existed. There were no rules, no conditions to belong there.
Of our fragile existence, yet our determination to survive. Of secret pains, and the yearning for love.
They would live life, grow old together, and this time—please, just this once—they would choose a different path. The path that did not lead into the palace.
His apology had come too late. Much, much too late.
The ache in my chest eased; the sting passed away. This was enough. It would be enough.
Some dreams, I’d learned, were meant to fade away. And to let go of them didn’t mean to let go of myself, but to release the life I’d imagined I wanted.
a new dream had bloomed. A dream that was quieter, less desperate, mellowed by the ashes of those who had died in the massacre. But it was also a dream that infused my world with deeper shades and brighter hues, with richer scents and far warmer streaks of contentment.
“We endured so much together. You didn’t let go of me then. Don’t let go of me now.”
“There is only you.” His words caressed me, winding themselves around my soul. “There will only ever be you. I promise, Hyeon-ah.”
The light in my night sky.
That was my wish at the Lantern Festival, many years ago: to cherish you for as long as there is breath in me.
